It's the End of the Road

There's nothing more dad to me than to come to the end of a vacation. I was going to say especially one that was so fun but every vacation we take is so much fun. It's not that I don't like to go home but I just love vacations. And in the summer who loves to go home to the heat!! SO we left Omaha and hit the road going west instead of east. 

This is a fun arch crossing the freeway by Kearney, Nebraska.

We spent teh day driving to Denver and made great time. We saw a little forest fire right in Denver that was probably caused by a lightening strike. We got into some stormy weather with some rain here and there and lightening. We love that! You could even smell the fire from our room which is a bit nerve wracking but it wasn't a problem after all. We had a good dinner at Carrabas and were off early the next morning. Driving on the I-40 is so beautiful through the mountains. It has everything. There are tunnels galore, huge mountains (especially being back east), cool air and gorgeous scenery.

I love the mines and ghost towns in the mountains.

 

Then there's tunnels and more tunnels. Who doesn't honk going through them?

It is a little tricky honking through this huge Eisenhower tunnel so we keep it down in there but...

When we go through the Glenwood Springs canyon it's bitter sweet. It's so beautiful but it's also the end of the forest!

As we left the forest and mountains we looked forward to a quick stop in Grand Junction for lunch and a quick break. We also had one more pretty part of the trip.

We love the reef area. The rocks are so pretty and we love to drive through the grand reef. And as luck would have it there was more rain to enjoy for the last day of traveling. Nothing beats driving through the rain and gloomy skies.

We drove through the rain and had dinner in St George. We made pretty great time because we drove into the drive way about 9 that night. We just got our suitcases into the house in time for a power outage to hit. Seriously? So that kept us busy for a couple of hours and then we knew the party was over. Back to our life. Christina left the next morning and I went back to work. We were so blessed to have such a great vacation. It was a blast. We didn't know just how blessed until the weekend when I took the car in for an oil change and found out our back tires were balding and had bubbles on the inside! Whew.

Hanging out in Lincoln

This morning we had our last sleep in of the trip. We picked up Hayden from selling and met Meg at Costco. We made a day of it in the samples while we waited to get Hayden and new phone and give his old one to Chris. After the great phone swap we had lunch so Hayden could get back to work. We decided to go to Lincoln as well so we could meet him easier for dinner. There was lots to see in Lincoln too.

 

 Our first stop of course.

There were trophies galore. They even had their 3 heisman trophies displayed in a special room as part of a video tribute. They popped out briefly so you could see them from a distance. It was pretty cool. We enjoyed taking a tour of the stadium.

The weight room was fun to see of course.

After checking out the Corn Huskers turf we decided to do a little antiquing. Yup we are hooked.

Surprisingly enough we didn't buy anything. Again too bad we couldn't haul it home.

We drove downtown and got a look at the state capital building.

It is a most unusual capital building. Very cool I think.

After the tour we had time so we went to the public botanical gardens. They were really nice. A little oasis in the middle of the city. We got out and walked around and enjoyed the flowers and people watched.

 We picked up Hayden who had a great day of sales and went to dinner at Cheddars. We had a great meal and made the trip back to Omaha later that night.

Sunday in Winter Quarters

We really enjoyed going to Hayden & Megan's ward in Chaco Hills. Everyone there was friendly and seemed really nice. After church we thought we'd go to Winter Quarters and check that out since we've never stopped there before. The visitors center is open so it was the perfect Sunday activity.

This was outside of the visitors center. 

 

Gotta get a group selfie!

We took a tour inside and learned some interesting things about the pioneers that went through here so long ago. They sure went through alot back then.

 

They even had these cute wooden miniatures for the kids to play with...or the teachers.

Just across the street there was a memorial to the pioneers and the cemetery right beside the Temple.

The stain glass windows in the Temple looked beautiful. I bet they are gorgeous from the inside.

I thought the detail work in the doors was very beautiful too.

After a lovely afternoon of visiting the Temple area we headed back to a wonderfull dinner Megan made us of chicken burritos. It was awesome to see fresh veggies again like lettuce and tomatoes. She made some yummy oreo truffles that we ate a ton of too. We got to laze around and take advantage of the wifi and just hang out and visit.

Then to be extra charitable we let them beat the heck out of us in rumikub. Great fun even if we lost.

Downtown Omaha...At Night...Who Knew!

We arrived just in time to go to VooDoo Taco. We had heard all about since last summer and now we finally got to try it for ourselves. The hardest part was choosing what we wanted to try. I got the fried avocado taco. It was amazing. We had alot of fun trying out everyone's food because it was all so different. You could definately tell there was a Louisianna influence and we loved it.

Another fun place to go back to! 

We decided to head right downtown and check out the night life. We were amazed. There were people everywhere. They were eating and walking around and hanging out and mostly drinking.  There were horse drawn carriages everywhere too. They had the buildings all lit up and restored looking pretty great.

Here's a few party animals. We walked all around and took it all in. 

Found a fun little candy store. Mendis' favorite was the chocolate dipped fudge. I went for the marzipan. The hazelnut truffle was the best.

We walked down to this fountain.  It was huge and so pretty changing colors every minute or so. We had to practice our selfie skills.

Some of us may need to practice more than others!

We finished the night up with some ice cream. Luckily we did walk some of that off tonight.

On to Omaha!

Saturday morning it was time to pack up and hit the road again. I thought I would include a few time share pictures. Pretty dated but it sure did the trick. It's always roomier than a hotel for sure.

I confess...as we drove up toward we made a pit stop. Yup we stopped at Lamberts to get a dozen rolls to go. We should have gotten 2 dozen though because then we would have felt free to eat as many as we wanted. We were after all on vacation. they came so hot and steamy we had to wait a minute or two before eating one!

Man those rolls are good. You gotta go if you ever get the chance.

So as we were driving again we got a kick out of the Fantastic Cavern billboards all along the way. Seriously they were every where. Just like "See Rock City":

 

 

 We kept on going and went straight to Kansas City where we planned to go to Joe's Kansas City BBQ. We knew before we even left home we were going to go there! It was actually the original gas station one which was fun. What wasn't fun was the wait. We were in line at least 10 min before the people behind us and they timed their wait at 48 minutes. Felt like two hours because the smell alone was killing us and it was late for lunch as it was.

People were dropping out like crazy which really helped us move up.

 

 

 Lunch was worth the wait. No question.

 We got back in the car in our protein coma and hit the road again. Finally in Iowa we started seeing corn fields. That's a sure sign that we are getting close to Omaha.

 We got there later than we expected but Hayden & Megan were waiting for us and we were ready for our next adventure. To be continued...